United States

Analysis

The United States is a superpower in Asia.

After defying its continued downward trend to record its first annual gain in comprehensive power in 2021, the United States’ overall score declined by 1.5 points in 2022, its lowest score in any edition of the Asia Power Index.

The United States continues to place first in six of the eight measures. As in 2021, it leads the Index in future resources, resilience, defence networks, cultural influence, and military capability. In 2022, China overtook the United States in the diplomatic influence measure, but the United States offset this loss by gaining first position in the economic capability measure.

The decline in US diplomatic influence in 2022 is the result of more tempered expert opinion about the performance of the Biden administration in the Indo-Pacific.

The country’s first-place ranking for economic capability is partly the result of weakening scores for China due to the country’s strict zero-Covid policies in 2022.

The United States still exerts less influence in the region than expected given its available resources, as indicated by the country’s negative power gap score. While the United States is a net underachiever in Asia, its negative power gap continued to improve in 2022.

Read more analysis in the Key Findings report. Explore further results in the Scores section.